Telecommunications networks that provide wireless access (e.g. GSM, UMTS, WiMax, LTE, WLAN) have developed tremendously over the past years. In such networks, voice and data services can be provided to communication devices having a high mobility, i.e. the communication devices are not bound to a particular location and are freely movable through the area covered by the network or the networks of roaming partner operators. A gateway node of the telecommunications network enables connection to a further network, for example a network based on IP, such as the internet.
The availability of such a telecommunications network connected to the further network has resulted in demands for further services, including services that relate to so-called machine-to-machine (M2M) communications, also referred to as machine-type communications (MTC). M2M is currently being standardized in 3GPP (see e.g. TS 22.368). MTC applications typically involve hundreds, thousands or millions of communication devices which each act as a communication device to the telecommunication network. Such communication devices may be stationary or non-stationary. An example involves the electronic reading of e.g. ‘smart’ electricity meters at the homes of a large customer base over the telecommunications network from a server connected to the further network. Other examples include sensors, meters, vending or coffee machines, car meters for route pricing applications, navigation equipment, etc. that can be equipped with communication modules that allow exchanging information with other equipment such as a data processing centre over the telecommunications network. Such devices may also be monitored by the server. The data processing centre may e.g. store the data and/or provide a schedule for maintenance people to repair or refill a machine, meter or sensor or may update information in the device. Also, the data processing centre may be configured for processing data received from mobile communications devices, e.g. for road pricing applications.
Many M2M applications are not time critical. A device may need to send/receive data regularly to/from a server, for instance every 24 hours, but has no further requirements about a specific time. In such cases a network operator may decide to schedule network access for these devices in a non-busy time period, as was e.g. disclosed in EP 2 096 884, which is incorporated by reference in the present application in its entirety. This leads to a situation wherein groups of devices are assigned a specific group time interval in which they will be granted access and outside that group time interval, they will be denied access. Granting and denying access can pertain to network attaches as well as connection setups and allows the network operator to control the use of network resources.
However, the group time interval may not be a suitable period in all parts of a telecommunications network or for visited networks in case of moving devices, such as navigation systems or road pricing devices in vehicles. As an example, the non-busy period of the home operator is not necessarily a non-busy period for the visited operator, wherein the telecommunications network of the home operator and the telecommunications network of the visited operator form a telecommunications infrastructure. This could be because the visited and home operators are in different time zones, or because the visited operator has already scheduled devices for other M2M applications in the group time interval assigned by the home operator.
On the other hand, the devices may still need to send information to or retrieve information from the server, e.g. map updates for a navigation device.
Similar considerations may also apply outside the context of M2M applications.